Today is the day that St. Ambrose is remembered within the history of the church. It is the day that is historically remembered for his being consecrated as a bishop. Ambrose was a key figure in the first few hundred years of the church. He is known as one of the Eight Doctors (Teachers) of the undivided church.

Ambrose was a leader brought up by God in a time when leadership was badly needed. There was a controversy in the church between two groups, the Athenasians (who believed that Jesus was divine and human, and a part of the triune God head) and the Arians (who believed that Jesus did not share the God head, but was the first created being). This was and is important when talking about Christian theology, for it is what we do with Jesus that defines our faith as Christian or not. (Christian belief holds that Jesus is divine and human and shares the divine godhead with the Father and the Holy Spirit). If we believe that Jesus was not divine, but only a created being, then we attack the sacrifice he made on the cross, the atonement he offers through his death, and the overall plan of God's redemption. (BTW, an example of present day Arian theology comes from within the Jehovah's Witness camp)

Ambrose stood for Athanasian theology as a bishop, in a time when it was difficult to do so. It was difficult because the emporor Constantius (son of Constantine) was Arian and was doing everything he could to ensure that the Arian theology won the day. Ambrose stood up to Contstantius, even to the point of placing himself in possible physical harm, until the Holy Spirit through Ambrose and others founded the church in the correct way of thinking of Jesus of Nazareth. If you are interested in reading more of the history, click here.

We in the present day church owe Ambrose and those like him, a debt of gratitude for it is because they fought the battles they did, that we stand on orthodox (right thinking) theology today.

We also must learn from Ambrose, for there are battles still to fight. Within postmodernity, the age in which we live now, there is this philosophy that permeates our culture. This philosophy is one of "relativism", or in other words, "there is no truth, but what is true for you". This philosophy is a response to the arrogant age of enlightenment, or modern age, that told us humans that we could know ultimate truth through the use of our own intellect, scientific methods, and hard work. The problem was, the more we studied, the more we found out that the "rabbit hole" went deeper. So, postmodernity (after-modernity) responded by saying to modernity, "there is no way to know truth, so there is no such thing as truth".

This philosophy is seen through out our culture, in the general thought of "each person creates their own truth", so there is no such thing as real truth. We who follow Jesus of Nazareth know that this is not the case. Unfortunately we in the church have responded to this "wrong thinking" in the wrong way. We have many times responded to this postmodern philosophy with weapons from modernity. We try to "prove" the truth of the Bible to postmodern people; laying out our arguments and our logic, which we find not only falls on deaf ears, but many times pushes people away. We pass out our tracts and our research papers, give our reason lined speechs, all with good intentions, but not recieving the respond to truth that we expect. Why is this? How do we fight this battle of offering the truth of Jesus to a postmodern world?

Well, first, I think we must go back to the story of Jesus laid out in the Bible and specifically what, or more correctly, who is truth. Truth is not a set of logical ideas, or a plan of salvation, that we can give to someone to convince them to believe. Truth is a person, Jesus. Jesus called himself, the "way, and the truth, and the life." If we want this age, that is so skeptical of logical proofs, packaged doctrines, and precise theologies, to set aside the idea that there is no real truth, and pick up the truth of Jesus, we must first offer them the person of Jesus, not the defense for him.

Obviously there is much to be said about how we offer the person Jesus, but I am going to let that sit for now and thank God for Ambrose and his example to us to live for and in the truth.

I read a good article from Christianity Today. This was an interview with N.T. Wright, who's writings and lectures have been a big influence with me.

The interview covered a range of topics, but mainly focused on understanding the world we live in and the church's mission within it.

What got me thinking were the words that Bishop Wright spoke on gnosticism. For those of you who are unfamiliar with gnosticism, it is the belief that everything one needs for spiritual well being is found within one's self. That is to say, that each person must look within to find the meaning of life. True life is not lived in the physical of what we can see, but in the "light" of what is inside of us. This is a brief and elementary definition, for gnosticism is much more complex, but it is a good place to start.

Bishop Wright mentioned that gnosticism was popular during the time of Jesus and the church he estabilished. Signs of this come from the Nag Hammadi findings, or the gnostic gospels; gospel of Phillip, gospel of Thomas, etc. These so called "gospels" show the influence of gnosticism in the world surrounding the Early Church. Much of the what the New Testament writers wrote was lined with the defense against the message of gnosticism.

Interesting enough, Bishop Wright reminds us that gnosticism isn't dead. It might wear a different cloak, but it is still influential in the world around us and even in the church. This is again seen in the popularity of the afore mentioned gnostic gospels found at Nag Hammadi. Many books and articles are being written in defense of these gospels, and in either intentional or unintentional opposition to the gospels of the Christian canon; Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

It is my estimation that gnosticism may even be better seen in the current and prevalant new age philosophy. The new age philosophy is ancient gnosticism with a new name. We see the same drive to look for truth, if such a thing can be found at all, within one's self. That the spiritual journey must first and always go inward.

Interestingly enough, I see shades of this new/old gnosticism ribboned within many of our so called Christian theologies. For example, in much of the Christian world it is taught that the point of being a Christian and following Christ is attaining eternal life, so as to have the hope of escaping this world that will some day burn. Because the primary focus has been on the individual gaining eternal life, and escaping what is around her, the spirituality proposed by this emphasis is very similar to the gnostic way of thinking. Escape by focusing inward.

Of course, there would be many Christians who would point out that the big difference is that gnosticism would say the answer is within a person, and Christianity would say the answer is with Christ within a person. I recognize this, but the weight of the theology is on the person focusing within. Bishop Wright made a good point when he mentioned that so many Christians today treat the task of following Christ as a personal, internal, and individual decision, when Christ did not just come to transform the internal individual, but the whole cosmos.

In Christ's resurrection we see that God is setting all of the world "to right", not just individuals.

Have we let the gnostic philosophy of self attention narrow our view of what God is doing?

How does this affect the way we see our mission? How does this change the way we do things?

I will post again on some of these thoughts.